Obama's first term, by the numbers

Jan. 20, 2013
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President Obama / Jewel Samad, AFP/Getty Images

by David Jackson, USA TODAY

by David Jackson, USA TODAY

He signed 654 bills into law, made 25 foreign trips and had 113 golf outings.

As President Obama's first term comes to an end, Mark Knoller of CBS News has gathered some statistics about the first four years.

Some of the numbers "show that the economy recovered from its recession on his watch but annual federal deficits topped a trillion dollars four years running, (and) the National Debt soared," writes Knoller, an unofficial White House historian.

Among our favorite stats, per Knoller:

National debt -- Jan. 2009: $10.616 trillion; Jan. 2013: $16.432 trillion (At $5.8 trillion, it's the largest increase in the national debt under one president. Mr. Obama says $1.3 trillion was waiting for him on the day he took office. The debt equals 104 percent of GDP).

Presidential pardons: 22 - This is the fewest of any president to date since James Garfield in 1881 who served only 200 days until his death. Asked why the president has granted so few so far, a spokesman said Mr. Obama "takes his Constitutional power to grant clemency very seriously and each recommendation received from the Department of Justice is carefully reviewed and evaluated on the merits."

Number of speeches, remarks and comments: 1,852

Number of speeches delivered with Teleprompter: 699

Number of speeches in which he referred to Slurpees?: 35 (During the 2010 midterm election campaign, Mr. Obama often portrayed Republicans as "sippin' Slurpees" while Democrats struggled to pull the U.S. economy out of a ditch.

Number of states visited to date: 44.

States not yet visited: 6 (Arkansas, Idaho, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah).